In depth and mini reviews of movies with a sprinkling of nostalgia and film music musings.

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

The Brood (1979)

Introduction:

I haven’t seen any of David Cronenberg’s
films from the 1970s. In fact I haven’t seen too many of his films in general.
So I was pretty stoked to see that Criterion was putting a couple of his better
regarded films on Hulu Plus. I didn’t know much about this film, other than it
had something to do with creepy kids. That seemed to be a staple of 70s horror,
maybe thanks to The Omen. All I knew
is that it was probably going to include some disturbing fleshy moments.

Summary:

Nola Carveth (Samantha
Eggar) has some serious emotional issues. Her husband Frank (Art Hindle) has
her undergoing experimental therapy under the care of Dr. Hal Raglan (Oliver
Reed). Raglan is able to work with his patients to expose their pain and
anguish in physical manners, such as raised bulges and protuberances that
appear instantly. While this is shocking and disturbing, Frank begins to wonder
if this is actually helping any of the patients.

His doubts are validated
when his daughter Candice (Cindy) returns from a visit with her mother with
bruises and scratches on her. Frank tells Dr. Raglan that he wants to stop the
visits, but Raglan insists that Nola is at a critical phase in her treatment
and stopping the visits will only cause things to get worse. Well, things do
get worse, but in a way no one expects. While Candice is staying with her
grandmother a strange little “person” attacks and kills the grandmother. Frank fears
for his daughter’s life. When more attacks continue he begins to wonder if Dr.
Raglan is connected to the fearsome attacks by the murderous Brood.

Good Points:

A slow building story that
gets more disturbing as it goes along

The finale really packs a
punch

Acting by the three leads
helps the story along

Bad Points:

If you don’t buy into the
concept at the heart of the story, the film will not work for you

Some viewers may find the
pint sized horrors to be silly looking

Some of the supporting cast
goes a little over the top

Overall:

I found this film to be a
nice slow build to a very disturbing climax. The concept of manifesting your
strong emotions into a physical form is an interesting horror idea and
Cronenberg uses it well. The main cast does a great job with Oliver Reed
providing a cool intensity that makes you immediately distrust him. Beneath the
horror is the idea that physical abuse and torment within a family can
literally be passed down from generation to generation.

Scores
(out of 5)

Visuals: 4

Sound: 3

Acting: 4

Script: 4

Music: 3

Direction: 4

Entertainment: 4

Total:4

Curious about a full review,
sent me an email and I’ll make additional thoughts to this review.

7 comments:

Giving a new meaning to "makes my skin crawl." I haven't seen this for many years, but I liked it at the time though it didn't leave me with any wish to see it again. Oliver Reed is usually worth watching. Off the set he bore watching.

I've seen this, but I'll be darn if I remember much about it. I remember enjoying it as I have a number of his films. If you're into watching a few things for Halloween, he's a good director to start out with. I added a few of his later films to my NF queue, but haven't gotten to them yet. They steer away from horror, but less successful too according to critics.

I saw his film, "A History of Violence" and thought it was really good. There is a review of it somewhere on this blog. :) But I find his horror films to be visually more interesting. I watched "Videodrome" a few years back and that one blew my mind. I'm still not sure if I loved it or was too damn disturbed by it.

Yeah I read about the divorce after writing my review. It really makes a lot of sense when you add that context to the film, and put a new light on it for me. I have to say, I need to see more of his earlier stuff. Each time I watch one of his movies I really like it, I may not grasp get all the symbolism, but man I love that he just goes for it.

I've read a few reviews that found the small antagonists funny. I'm not sure if they weren't in the right mood for the movie or what, but I didn't find them funny at all. They were disturbing! I think Cronenberg did a good job keeping them very creepy and not letting their size appear like a handicap (which could have lead to un intentional humor). In fact their small size made them more dangerous and harder to detect.

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About Me

I'm a writer who loves movies, books, video games and music. Wow, that's pretty generic eh? Been a staff writer for DVD Verdict.com and animeondvd.com. I worked at a video store for nearly 10 years. Still working on genre fiction both short and novel length.